Pamphlets

Pamphlet 46 – Universalism and Creativity – 2023

How creativity expresses and enhances spirituality across the world In May 2023 QUG held its second blended annual conference. We had a good number in Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, probably our last conference in this venue. We were also...

Pamphlet 45: Health and Healing - 2022

In April 2022 QUG held its first ever blended annual conference. We met in Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre and were joined by an approximately equal number of people online. We had four speakers, two at Woodbrooke and two online, all approaching the topic...

Pamphlet 44: Life, Time and Eternity, Part Two – 2021

In May 2021 QUG held its annual conference online. We had six speakers, all approaching the topic from a different viewpoint. The proceedings are published in two pamphlets, this one and No. 43. In this pamphlet there are the views of a Hindu and a scientist,...

Pamphlet 43: Life, Time and Eternity, Part One – 2021

In May 2021 QUG held its annual conference online. We had six speakers, all approaching the topic from a different viewpoint. The proceedings are published in two pamphlets: this one and No. 44. Here we have the views of an anthropologist, a Christian,...

Pamphlet 42: Forgiveness – Why Forgive?

This pamphlet publishes the proceedings of the QUG 2019 Annual Conference as a QUG pamphlet. The five articles, written from religious, psychological and practical perspectives, consider the nature of forgiveness and how it functions in a wide range...

Pamphlet 41: 'Truth: reflections broadly (but not only) in a Quaker context', Joycelin Dawes, 2018

Joycelin presents a comprehensive overview of Quakers’ understanding of truth as a way of life, found in the deepest inward part of ourselves and the seat of our spiritual experience. This approach to truth is considered within the context of current p...

Pamphlet 40: 'Quaker Understandings of Truth', Tony Philpott, Alan York, Hugh Rock, Stephen Cox, 2018

This pamphlet contains four of the five talks given at the 2018 QUG annual conference (see Pamphlet No. 41 for the fifth). The conference explored Quaker understandings of truth in religion, for the individual Quaker, and in the media. Tony Philpott...

Pamphlet 39: 'The Language of Spirituality, Alan York', 2018

Can the universe and our experiences of it be completely explained by science in terms of the physical properties of matter or is there a ‘something’ beyond, a spiritual/religious/mystical ‘something’ that is essentially different from the physical world a...

Pamphlet 38: 'Mind the Oneness: The Mystic Way of the Quakers', Rex Ambler, 2017

This pamphlet comprehensively explores Quaker mysticism from the earliest years of George Fox to the present day, and is an expanded version of the talk given by Rex Ambler to the 2017 Quaker Universalist Group annual conference on mysticism. The text...

Pamphlet 37: 'The Mystery of Mysticism', Jan Arriens, Prof. Chris Cooke, Dr Sharada Sugirtharajah, Dr Alinda Damsma, 2017

This pamphlet contains four papers given to the 2017 Annual Conference of the Quaker Universalist Group on the subject of mysticism. They cover aspects of mysticism as experienced and understood by speakers from different faith traditions. Each talk...

Pamphlet 36: 'Compassion – Papers from the Quaker Universalist Group Annual Conference 2016', Frances Deegan, Michael Barnes and Qamar Bhatti-Khan, 2016

This pamphlet arose from our Quaker Universalist Conference in July 2016 which had the title Compassion: Why is it failing? Three of the talks at the conference have been written up and edited by the presenters to make up this publication. The first,...

Pamphlet 35: 'Resolving Difference – in our ways of speaking about God or the ultimate reality', Rex Ambler, 2016

This pamphlet is based on a talk given to a national conference organised by the Quaker Committee on Christian and Interfaith Relations in 2014. Rex sets out a problem: ‘we are disagreeing among ourselves about how to describe the ultimate mysteries o...

Pamphlet 34: ' Islam Today: A Muslim Quaker’s View', Christopher Bagley, 2015

Christopher Bagley is a member of the Quaker Universalist Group who is both a Quaker and a Muslim. Islam Today: A Muslim Quaker’s View is a very personal account of Islam and the many issues around it.This pamphlet is relevant to a number of questions f...

Pamphlet 33: 'Quakerism and Buddhism: The Cutting Edge', Anne Bancroft, 2008

Anne Bancroft speaks from a long experience of both Buddhism and Quakerism. She sets the Buddha and George Fox in their respective contexts and traces their spiritual journeys: that of George Fox as recorded in his and his contemporaries’ writings; a...

Pamphlet 32: 'Choosing Life: Embracing Spirituality in the 21st Century', Joycelin Dawes, 2008

Drawing on the Author’s extensive experience of contemporary spirituality, this highly accessible booklet outlines an engaged spirituality for our time, one that takes the reality of the troubled world and the global challenges we face as the basis f...

Pamphlet 31: 'Human Beings Yearning for a Faith', Clive Sutton, 2006

In his introduction Clive says “Seeking a firm faith to live by is a continuing quest for many people in our time, but we are not the first to find it so. I have felt that anyone trying to find a way forward on their own spiritual journey today might l...

Pamphlet 30: 'A Platform of Consciousness: Spirituality without Religion', Adrian Cairns, 2001

Following on from no. 29, Adrian Cairns develops the idea of consciousness, or awareness of our human situation as it really is. He sees a philosophy of living based on the unity of the All and One fused through human experience as light and love and...

Pamphlet 29: 'Of One Heart, Diverse Mind: the Quaker Universalist Way', Adrian Cairns, 1999

Sees Quaker Universalism within a metaphorical framework and explores the contemporary post-Christian ‘God as-it-were’ within the growing global consciousness. Available for purchase at £1.35 (How?)

Pamphlet 28: 'The Oblique Light: poetry and peak experience', Anne Ashworth, 1998

Reflects through poetry and prose on the gift of the transfiguring experience. THROUGH A CLAUDE GLASS DARKLY The picturesque Travelleryour eighteenth century aesthete - contemplates his glass. Elegant, cased, convex, its black mirror cups his...

Pamphlet 27: 'Signposts to the Future? Creation Centred Spirituality and the Sea of Faith', Josephine Teagle, 1997

Explores similarities and differences in two visions of future spiritual paths. In this essay Josephine Teagle tries to bring together those threads which make up the spiritual reality of her life today. Broadly speaking they are labelled as 'Quaker...

Pamphlet 26: 'The Faith of a Quaker Humanist', David Boulton, 1997

A Quaker humanist? Some mistake, surely? Is not Quakerism essentially religious, and is not humanism a denial of religion and "things of the spirit"? Can oil and water mix without creating an unholy mess? This pamphlet considers the inter-relationship...

Pamphlet 25: 'On the Contrary', John Hemming, 1996

A meditative reflection on the universal light of childhood and our journey to wholeness. Available for purchase at £1.15 (How?)

Pamphlet 24: 'Quakerism, Universalism & Spirituality', Ralph Hetherington, 1995

A statement of the Quaker Universalist position, tracing the history of universalism in the Society and discussing the significance of spirituality within religion. Available for download

Pamphlet 23: 'Wisdom, Nature and Spirit', Carol MacCormack, 1994

Written by an anthropologist, this pamphlet looks at some alternative spiritualities, particularly those based on the wisdom of the feminine. This is a search for alternative or new forms of understanding spirituality in the accepted institutions and...

Pamphlet 22: 'The Still, Small Voice, Fear and Me', Robert E Newman, 1993

Perhaps those of us who find ourselves listening to the still small voice within, should listen to each other too. In this pamphlet I'm going to write from my experience and to invite others to share their accounts and reflection on how they too are...

Pamphlet 21: 'Several sorts of Quakers', Stephen Allott, 1992

A reflection on the relationship between Quakers and some of the many meanings of the word ‘Christian’. Click to download

Pamphlet 19: ' A Dialogue for Universalists', Adam Curle, 1991

This pamphlet is a dialogue between a teacher and a group of enquirers. It is the way Curle decides to share what he has learnt about ‘the great questions of our existence’ or, put in psychological terms, ‘how we work and what we are’. In his backgro...

Pamphlet 17: 'The Place of Jesus in Quaker Universalism', Jan Arriens, 1995

In this pamphlet Jan Arriens faces head on the fundamental difference between traditionalist Christian Quakers and Universalist Quakers, namely the status of Jesus. He acknowledges that although both groups can come together in their shared beliefs in...

Pamphlet 16: 'A Universal Sense of the Numinous', Jack Mongar, 1989

This essay gathers together thoughts on human spirituality and tries to relate them to scientific thinking. For Jack Mongar mystical experience is seen as the immediate intuitive knowledge of a God or equivalent. This experience is unanalysable and...

Pamphlet 14: 'Nature Green in Cell and Leaf', John Barnes, 1994

Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking are both at home in viewing with some reverence the majesty and coherence of the universe. By contrast, other modern scientists such as Richard dawkins may have little such reverence . Our picture of nature as...

Pamphlet 13: 'The Watchmaker Reconsidered', Carol Mac Cormack, 1988

Part 1 is entitled ‘Watchmakers sacred and profane’. MacCormack gives a history of the watchmaker metaphor from the ‘enchanted’ world of medieval times when God controlled and intervened in daily events, to the mechanistic age of science and technol...

Pamphlet 12: 'There is another world but it is this one', Jean Hardy, 1988, reprinted 1995

Jean Hardy examines the ways in which we perceive the world, acknowledging that perception is in the mind . Is our experience limited to that available through the five senses? Perhaps these senses present a limited picture . “Reality” may be man...

Pamphlet 08: 'The Place of Universalism in the Society of Friends', Dan Seeger, 1986

This is the text of a talk given in 1984 by a New York Friend. Seeger talks of journeys – of humankind and of individuals. He sees the world in some sort of crisis, created by our ‘spiritual lapses’. He refers to the journeys of notable individuals from ...

Pamphlet 07: 'Towards Universalism', Tim R Miles, 1985

In keeping with other leading Quaker universalists of the time, in this pamphlet, written for a Quaker readership, Tim Miles is explicit that universalism is not some new creed or position within Quakerism and that his aim is to encourage Friends to...

Pamphlet 06: 'Readings for Universalists', (Ed) Ralph Hetherington 1984

In support of his pamphlet (no 4) in 1983, Ralph Hetherington put together this collection of quotations from over 20 influential writers to show that universalism has been a core part of Quakerism since its earliest days. The passages address the key...

Pamphlet 05: 'Sources of Universalism in Quaker Thought', Winifred Burdick, 1983

Passages from spiritual reformers in the 16th and 17th Centuries by Rufus Jones, selected and condensed by Winifred Burdick. Click to download

Pamphlet 04: 'Universal Quakerism', Ralph Hetherington, 1983

Ralph Hetherington was a founder member of QUG and influential in promoting universalism within British Quakers. In this seminal pamphlet he set out the reasons why universalist Friends at that time held the views that they did. Arguing for a clearer...

Pamphlet 03: 'Christ in a Universe of Faiths', John Hick, 1982

Your religion depends on where you were born, and any credible faith must take account of this. If salvation ( becoming fully human) is the central business of religion, then a Christian must ask about the clear salvation people find through other...

Pamphlet 02: 'The Meeting Place of the World's Great Faiths', Horace G. Alexander, 1980

Alexander’s aim is to show that, if one’s definitions are broad enough, then there are important commonalities between religious experiences in the various world faiths. He takes a wide definition of ‘mystical’ (‘a first-hand knowledge of God’) and ‘God’ (...

Pamphlet 01: 'Quakerism as Forerunner', John Linton, 1979

The talk which led directly to the formation of the Quaker Universalist Group Click to download